Two sisters, Su-Mi (Im Soo-jung) and Su-Yeon (Moon Geun-young), have been deeply traumatised by the circumstances of their mother's death. After a long stay in an institution, they return to the country-house of their father (Kim Kab-su) and his new wife Eun-joo (Yeom Jeong-a). The shy Su-yeon is terrified by footsteps that she hears approaching her bed at night, Su-mi is convinced that her younger sister is being beaten and tormented by their stepmother, while the pill-popping Eun-joo's behaviour becomes more and more neurotic and aggressive. In this atmosphere of heated female hysteria, a fifth presence in the house is making itself felt, forcing the family's dark secrets out of the closet.

For all the apparent simplicity of its premise, 'A Tale of Two Sisters' has more twists than a sixties dance floor, so that seemingly innocuous questions - who does the father keep calling on the telephone? why is Eun-Joo on medication? why does her menstrual cycle coincide with Su-yeon's? - receive the most unexpected answers. At times this film is nail-bitingly terrifying, but for the most part it is marked by a brooding, slightly unhinged mood of melancholy through which, as in Hideo Nakata's 'Dark Water', madness scurries like a ghost.

Lose yourself in the haunted delirium of 'A Tale of Two Sisters' before Hollywood puts it on prozac.Gallery: